


Ask Questions Later

by imkerfuffled



Series: 25 Days of Ficlet Prompts [17]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, rated for brief language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: You're Deaf and I Don't Speak English</p><p>Nat and Clint are on a mission in LA when  things go very very wrong. Luckily, they have a backup plan... A backup plan that nobody bothered to clue Kate in on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be for the “signs and signals" prompt, but then it got too long and I was wasting too much time on it, so I decided to post it separately once I finished it. Then I forgot about it. Now I've found it again, finished it in two days, and decided “you know what? This works."
> 
> Also, the idea behind this came from another tumblr prompt, which... i can't can't find right now. But it was really funny. So I wrote a thing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strike Team Delta meets Hawkeye Number Two at a fancy benefit, and shady stuff happens.

“I futzing hate fancy parties.” 

Clint twirled Natasha around on the dance floor again. 

“I really futzing hate them.” 

“I couldn’t tell,” Natasha said dryly, “Now shut up and look happy. You’re supposed to be dancing with the love of your life, remember?” 

“There’s pizza?” Clint ignored her completely (or implied pizza to be the love of his life, which was just as likely), craning his neck to find the refreshments table. Natasha grabbed him by the chin and forced his head forward. 

“You’re _also_ supposed to be keeping an eye on Richmond, who is currently _behind me_ ,” she said. 

“Hey look! Kate’s on it.” 

“What?” 

“Kate Bishop, currently flirting with our target.” 

Natasha spun him around with a little more force than necessary to see for herself. Sure enough, the second Hawkeye stood next to the punch bowl, shamelessly batting her eyes at Mr. Harold Richmond, wealthy businessman and possessor of Pakistani government secrets. 

“What is she doing here?” hissed Natasha, “Does she know who he is?” 

“Dunno. I just saw her when you squished my face,” Clint shrugged as the music spun them around again, “And, yeah, she probably knows who he is. She’s rich. Rich people know each other.” 

Natasha gave him a sharp look as her dress billowed around her feet. “You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t think she knows who he’s _about_ to be.” Meaning, he was _about_ to be a man getting robbed by two master spies at a fancy dinner party in a building with far too many flourishes in its woodwork. 

“Then what is she doing here?” 

Clint shrugged again. “Hey, look she’s spotted us. Hi bro!” 

Kate had indeed spotted them, and at Clint’s waving she left Richmond’s side and started walking towards them with a puzzled expression. Clint and Natasha maneuvered their way off the dance floor to join her. 

Natasha couldn’t help but notice that Kate’s dress was the exact same shade of purple as Clint’s tie, and if they were anyone else she would have thought they planned it. 

“Bro, you futzing _hate_ fancy parties! What are you doing here?” Kate said by way of hello. 

“What am _I_ doing here? Bro, what are _you_ doing here?” 

Before they could continue ‘broing’ at each other, Natasha cut in, “We’re here on a classified mission, and you were flirting with the subject. What do you know?” 

Kate’s mouth actually fell open, which until then Natasha thought only happened in cartoons. “What, _Harry_ is a bad guy? Seriously, out of all the shady people here, it’s got to be him?” 

Clint gave her a _'sorry'_ look and rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Damn, it’s always the hot ones. What did he do?” 

“Classified stuff, bro,” Clint said, “I don’t want you getting mixed up in SHIELD business, seriously. What are you doing here?” 

“One of my old clients weaseled me into it,” Kate pulled a face, “I think he thought he was doing me a favor. Something about networking.” 

Natasha saw all the warning signs of a chat-fest waiting to happen, so she quickly intervened. “Look, Richmond’s moving now; we have to go,” she tugged on the sleeve of Clint’s jacket, “Kate, could you make sure no one follows us?” 

“Sure thing, bro. But I’m totally expecting a full explanation when you’re through, ‘kay?” 

Clint gave her a thumbs up and a goofy grin. 

As they spoke, Harold Richmond had quietly slipped away from the ballroom, and Clint turned just in time to catch his coattails disappearing down a hallway. They left the other partygoers in Kate’s capable hands as Natasha pulled Clint after Richmond, pretending to be just another tipsy, trophy girlfriend looking for a private corner to make off to with her boyfriend. Clint would never fail to be amazed with how well she pulled off the ditzy act. 

They followed the solidly built businessman through three hallways and a courtyard before reaching a heavy wooden door on the west side of the old mansion. 

“Second drawing room?” Clint whispered, trying to remember the floor plan they’d glanced at before starting the mission. 

Natasha nodded. She placed a feather-light hand on the wall, quietly testing its thickness for eavesdropping purposes. This time she shook her head, indicating that it wasn’t thin enough for even her to hear through, let alone Clint. “You know the drill.” 

“Oh, I like this drill.” 

“Shut up, you dummy.” 

This drill involved attaching a small listening device to the wall which transmitted every sound inside the room directly into the hearing aid Clint wore and an earpiece of Natasha’s disguised as a Bluetooth device. The part Clint liked was where he got to stand very close to Natasha, ready to make out with her at a moment’s notice in case anyone came around the corner and they needed a cover story. They’d decided Natasha would be the one against the wall because she was faster at drawing a gun and shooting over someone’s shoulder, while Clint would scoop up the listening device if it came to that. 

Nobody interrupted them, and Clint limited himself to only three sex jokes while he set up the small, circular device. There was a slight _fzzt_ in his ear as it connected with his hearing aid, before the audio feed kicked in. 

_“… Weren’t followed, were you?”_ said a faintly accented French voice from inside the room. To Clint and Natasha it sounded like his deep baritone came from right beside them. 

“No.” That was the terse tenor of Harold Richmond. _“I was careful.”_

The two spies grinned at each other. He _had_ been careful, but they had been more so. 

_“May I see it?”_ asked the buyer. There was a pause as Richmond must have pulled from his pocket the flash drive that contained his stolen secrets. 

_“We agreed to fifteen thousand dollars, Rousseau,”_ said Richmond. 

_“Ah, yes, of course,”_ the Frenchman, Rousseau, said in a voice that meant anything but ‘ah, yes, of course.’ _“See, I’ve been thinking about that, and I have decided fifteen thousand is a tad…excessive, is it not?”_

Silence. 

_“I decided a more reasonable price was, say, ten thousand.”_

Longer silence. 

Finally, Richmond spoke, his voice dripping with condescension. _“I don’t think you understand how extremely valuable this information is. I have three other buyers lined up at this benefit alone who would be happy to cover the cost if you bail. So you ask yourself just how badly you want these plans... I hear the US military would pay a pretty price for this kind of intel.”_

They could hear Rousseau considering it for a moment, and then his voice cut through the silence. 

_“Or I could just take it.”_

“Shit.” Clint yanked the listening device off the wall just as the sound of gunfire filled his hearing. Natasha rolled under his arms and tugged on the door handle, lock detonator already in hand for when it wouldn’t open. She stuck the detonator above the keyhole, and they both covered their ears. Inside the room, the gunshots had stopped. 

In the time it took for the detonator to go off, Natasha had stripped out of her silky blue dress and into her SHIELD uniform underneath. They both had their pistols drawn and at the ready. 

_BAM!_ The lock exploded, and Clint kicked the door in with a splintering _crash._ They sprang into action, leaving no time to take stock of their surroundings. Clint went after a burly man in the corner holding a gun, letting Natasha take Rousseau. The Frenchman stood, frozen for a second in shock as he bent over the body of Harold Richmond, the stolen flash drive hanging from his limp hand. Natasha wasted no time in roundhouse kicking the flash drive away from Rousseau. 

He wasn’t built for fighting, but Rousseau put up a decent one, in comparison to some others Natasha had fought. He drew a small handgun from his pocket and fired off a few shots that she easily dodged. She grabbed his shooting arm and twisted it away from her, then threw all her weight on his arm as she spun her body around it. He crumpled to the ground. She landed in a crouch and pinned him to the floor. He struggled for a second, went limp, and she hit him in the head with her gun. 

It was over in less than a minute. 

In the corner, Clint nudged his now-unconscious gunman with his foot and walked over to Natasha, who had gotten to her feet. 

“Damn, that guy was efficient,” Clint said, examining the clean bullet hole in Richmond’s scull. 

“Flash drive’s in the corner,” Natasha jerked her head in the direction she’d kicked it, “I’m going to get my dress.” She holstered her gun and walked out the door, while Clint searched for the flash drive. 

When Natasha returned, clad in her blue evening gown again, Clint still hadn’t found the flash drive. He was crouched in the corner, feeling around for anyplace it could have gotten swept underneath. 

“It was right over there,” she pointed. 

“I looked there.” 

“Not hard enough, obviously—” she was interrupted by a voice from the doorway. 

“FREEZE!” 

They spun around. 

“Put your hands in the air!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detective Caudle is back, with everyone's favorite sharpshooter/private investigator/chronic, purple, meddling pain in the ass.
> 
> And here's the part where you might get a bit confused if you haven't read the Hawkeye comics.

Detective Caudle was not a fan of fancy suits. Normal suits, he liked; he wore those every day for work. But _fancy_ suits—suits that actually fit right and caused concern over spills—he hated. Something about his income bracket must have shown in the way he wore his suit, because all the rich party-goers, with their clothes and attitudes that practically oozed money, seemed to avoid him like the plague. That was fine by him; he wasn’t here to cozy up to pseudo-celebrities.

His police radio crackled at his hip, and he brought it up to his ear.

 _“Caudle, any sign of him yet? Over,”_ the voice on the other end said, barely distinguishable over the music and chatter.

“That’s a negatory,” Caudle said, scanning the room with his eyes, “But he’ll be here. Hold your position. Over.”

_“Roger that, over an’ out.”_

Caudle slid the radio back in his belt clip and carefully scrutinized the crowd, searching among it for one face in particular: Flynt Ward. Word on the street said he was planning something big for this party—much bigger than his usual “Weed Lord” dealings. Caudle hoped it would be enough to put him away for a good while; hence the armored agents hidden in a van outside.

 _Weed Lord_ , Caudle thought, still searching for his floppy blond mop of hair, _What kind of stupid name is that?_

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of a familiar shade of purple spinning on the dance floor, but when he looked closer it turned out to be a man’s tie. He shook his head at his own skittishness. Throughout this entire investigation Caudle kept expecting to turn around and find that pesky “hero for hire” girl with a penchant for trouble almost as large as her love for the color purple, yet Kate Bishop seemed to have disappeared. If it weren’t for her, Ward wouldn’t even be on the LAPD’s radar, but Caudle was grateful that this time she hadn’t shown up poking her nose in his—

—Investigation…

Another flash of purple emerged from the shifting sea of bodies, and Detective Caudle nearly swore when he saw the face it belonged to.

Bishop stood across the room near the punch bowl, arms crossed, foot tapping, looking off toward the hallway with an expression that was all too familiar to Caudle. She was on a case.

He groaned.

Caudle knew there was no possible way she could have heard him across the room, but the moment the sound escaped his mouth she glanced straight at him… She turned back to the hallway…

And did a double-take. Her eyebrows shot up her forehead, and her jaw dropped. Caudle distinctly saw her mouth form the words, ‘ _Oh_ _shit_.’

He marched straight across the dance floor, planted himself in front of her, and demanded, “Where is he?”

“Who?” she said innocently, but her hands fidgeting with the sleeve of her dress betrayed her.

“Don’t give me that crap,” Caudle snapped, “Why else would you be here?”

“I dunno, maybe I’m super rich,” she shrugged.

Caudle gave her a stern glare.

“Anyway,” she said, “Why are _you_ here? Last I checked an LA cop doesn’t have the kind of payroll to get into one of these joints… sooooo…” _Please don’t be Clint, please don’t be Clint, pleasedon’tbeclint,_ she thought.

Before Caudle could respond, his police radio crackled to life again, and an urgent voice came from the other end. _“Sir, we have reports of gunshots coming from the west wing. I repeat: gunshots from the west wing. Do you copy?”_

Both Kate and Caudle froze, each waiting with bated breath for the other to make a move. Kate’s eyes flickered to the left for a brief second, and Caudle realized she was about to make a run for it.

“Oh no you don’t,” he growled, snatching at her arm just before she lunged for freedom. To the agents on the radio, he said, _“I copy. You and your team move in, and I’ll be there in a minute. I’ve got to deal with something here first. Over and out.”_

“Look, kid,” he clipped the radio back in his belt and rounded on Kate, who plastered an awkward, guilty grin on her face, “I don’t know _what_ your problem is, but you seem to have made it your goal in life to be a personal pain in my ass—”

“—Look, I can explain!”

“Now, I could tell you to leave the detective work to the professionals…”

“They didn’t do anything, I swear!”

“...And pulling the kind of stunts you do will only land you in trouble and/or jail…”

“They’re friends of mine. They were just over there to get it on or something.”

“…But I’ve said all that before, and I don’t want to say it again, so…”

“I mean, it’s not like I pay any attention to their sex life. That would be weird.”

“What do you know about Ward’s business here?”

“--Wait, what?” Kate said, at the same time Caudle shouted, “Hang on— _sex_ _life_?”

They blinked at each other for a few seconds, before Kate said, “You first.”

“What is he doing here?”

“‘He’ being?”

“Flynt Ward.”

“Really?” Kate pulled a face, “That S.O.B. is here? My _god_ , next you’re gonna say _Lucky_ is—never mind. I am so not here for that stupid Weed Lord.”

Caudle narrowed his eyes skeptically.

“Seriously, I really am here ‘cuz I’m rich,” Kate explained, “‘Course, I also kinda disowned myself, but.... Anyway, youshouldmaybegocheckoutthatshootingnow?”

He chewed on the thought for a second and grunted, “Fine. But you’re coming with. And you’re going to explain to me what you were just babbling about.”

Kate nodded in a way reminiscent of a bobble-head, which was abruptly cut off when Caudle started dragging her towards the hallway.

“Who were the ‘they’ you mentioned?” he asked roughly, while Kate had to jog beside him so she wouldn’t trip.

“Oh, just some friends of mine,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual and not-close-to-panic, “Like I said, they went off to the west wing to, like, hook up, and when your walkie-talkie guy mentioned it, I thought you thought they had something to do with it.”

“Why would I think that?” His feet made loud clomping noises with each step on the exquisitely detailed tiles.

“Because you always think it has something to do with me, and I panicked,” Kate said truthfully.

They turned a corner, and the _clomp_ _clomping_ of Caudle’s shoes almost drowned out his muttered, “It usually _does_ have something to do with you.” Out loud, he said, “Do you really expect me to believe you?”

“They’re just some friends of mine, honest!” she said, “That’s all.”

“Somehow, I doubt any friends of yours could be described by the phrase ‘that’s all.’”

“True,” she said, “You should see my other friend. She could out-America Captain America.” Kate forced her words into a cheery shape to hide her rising panic. _Clint_ , she thought _, if you’re dead or arrested, I will_ _kill you._

Suddenly, she drew a deep breath and shouted, “Oh my god, what if they got _shot_?”

“You need to work on your acting, kid.”

Caudle’s clomping took them around two more corners and across a courtyard before they entered a hallway filled with black-clad, rifle-toting policemen. On the other side of a tall, wooden door Kate could hear a woman bawling unintelligibly. Her blood turned to ice in her veins when she realized who the voice belonged to.

Natasha.

Kate could think of nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , that could make Natasha cry like that.

_Futz futz futz futz futz futzing futz. Fuck!_

She stumbled in front of the door behind Caudle, and her first thought was, _oh thank god._ Clint stood inside, looking dazed but alive. At nearly the same time, her second thought was, _what the hell?_ Natasha was trembling violently in the center of the room, still howling in… Russian? Yes, Russian.

Her third thought was, _shit_. On the floor, painted crimson with blood, Richmond lay dead.

 _Okay_ , Kate thought…


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cops have no clue what to do with a deaf guy and a hysterical Russian lady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if I mess up on any of the ASL here. I just had online dictionaries to go off of, and I really want to get this right.

...Clint thought, _This looks bad._

Seven armed officers blocked the doorway and more stood outside, each wearing identical bulletproof gear with the letters LAPD emblazoned on the chest. Individually, they would be no match for Strike Team Delta, but Clint didn’t like their odds with so many when the two of them were caught off guard. 

They had a split second to decide what to do. 

Then Natasha started wailing. 

Clint was once again struck by her acting skills. In less time than it took to blink, she transformed from a cornered assassin into a terrified, innocent bystander. Her body shook like a leaf in a hurricane, and her eyes shone with real fear. She babbled seemingly incoherently in Russian, flailing her hands in the air. 

The cops shifted in confusion, clearly uncomfortable with pointing rifles at a hysterical Russian lady. 

As soon as Natasha had started screaming, Clint subtly switched his initial expression of shock with one of traumatized horror. Now he rose shakily to his feet, sweeping his gaze around the corner in what appeared to be an unfocused daze but was really still an attempt to find the missing flash drive. His role in this was simple: act completely unaware of everything around him and babble with his hands. 

One of the cops cleared his throat. “Um… Ma’am, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to… er…” 

“Clyde, give her a break,” said another, “Do you really think she had anything to do with this?” 

“She is literally standing over the body!” the first one argued, turning around to face his friend. 

Clint—who had passed relatively unnoticed in the shadow of Natasha’s performance and took the opportunity to start signing “shit shit shit shit shit” repeatedly—saw the exact moment Natasha’s face switched back to spy-mode. It was a subtle shift, just the slightest hardening around the eyes, giving Clint the signal he needed for them both to attack— 

“You. Did you shoot these men?” a third officer barked at Clint, bringing all their attention back to him. 

“Oh my god, Johnson,” muttered another cop, while Clint signed, “douche canoe” at him and otherwise ignored the cops. Natasha cursed fluently in Russian at their missed opportunity. 

“Hey, answer me!” the third officer, Johnson yelled at Clint. 

Clint snapped his head around to face him, like he had only just noticed the cops in the room. His eyes shot open even wider than they were before, and he pointed frantically at Richmond’s dead body with his right hand, sliding it across the palm of his other hand over and over again: the sign for “murder.” 

Johnson gaped at him like Clint was stupid, clearly not picking up on the fact that Johnson was the stupid one in this situation—an observation Natasha cheerfully pointed out in her most ear-piercing, Russian shriek, in between reciting prime numbers. Her voice was so high-pitched, Clint doubted anyone here would be able to understand her even if they did speak Russian 

“I. Am. Talking. To. You,” Johnson snapped his fingers under Clint’s nose. 

“Um…” another officer said hesitantly, and Clint noticed, out of the corner of his eye, her staring at the tiny, skin-colored hearing aid in his left ear. 

Clint squinted at Johnson, pretending to have difficulty reading his lips as he kept shouting in his face. Abruptly, Clint stopped signing “murder,” and instead started signing, “I’m deaf,” by poking himself in the cheek. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Johnson yelled. 

“Uh, Johnson… I think he’s—” 

Before the officer could finish her sentence, the sounds of a commotion could be heard on the other side of the door, barely audible over Natasha’s continued crying. The police turned to see what it was, and again Clint and Natasha saw their chance… 

Then two figures stumbled into view. One was a balding man in an uncomfortable-looking suit, and the other… 

Was Kate Bishop, looking very concerned and very confused. 

_‘Aw, futz,’_ Clint mouthed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All hell breaks loose, one Hawkeye is too obsessed with arrows, the author manages to subtly reference herself, and Natasha Gets Shit Done.

Everyone started shouting at once. 

Detective Caudle demanded to know “what the hell is going on,” from the officers already there. 

Clint signed, “We told you to keep people _away_ from us!” angrily at Kate. 

Natasha screamed at Clint, “Why the hell is she here?” before going back to blubbering what sounded like ‘the itsy bitsy spider’ in Russian. 

One officer shouted to Detective Caudle, “Get us some damn interpreters!” 

Another officer yelled, “Will someone just shut her up?” in the general direction of Natasha. 

Someone else replied with, “I don’t even know what _language_ she’s speaking!” 

Kate took advantage of the kerfuffle by fingerspelling one simple word to Clint: “What?” She let her face say all the rest. 

“Operation: deaf and foreign,” Clint signed back. 

Kate scrunched up her face in the universal gesture for, “Huh?” 

And then, as the police argued over how to handle the situation and Natasha ramped up her performance to astronomical levels, both spies got an idea. 

“We,” Clint pointed at himself and Kate, “need to distract them,” he jerked his finger towards the bickering police. 

Natasha and he made eye contact for a second, and they both nodded in sync. There wasn’t a doubt in their minds that they were thinking the exact same thing. 

Kate, on the other hand, had many doubts, and she increased her look of confusion to show it. 

“Questions later,” Clint signed, “Nat has to get something.” He held up three fingers and started mouthing, _‘Three.’_

One cop suggested that maybe they should stop shouting and actually do their job. 

_‘Two.’_

That same officer who noticed Clint’s hearing aid was staring at Kate with suspicious eyes. 

_‘One.’_

At the last second, Detective Caudle saw Clint’s countdown and lunged to grab him, but it was too late. Kate twisted from his grasp, kicked his feet out from under him, and leaped on another officer’s back while apologizing profusely to Detective Caudle. In the blink of an eye, Clint drew a night-night pistol from underneath his jacket and dropped three cops before they could get in a single shot. Natasha whipped her dress over her head again (which made Kate stare only because it _had_ to be physically impossible to get out of a dress in so little time, and had nothing to do with her recent sexuality crisis courtesy of Miss America. Actually, it might have had a tiny bit to do with that.) She kicked out at one policeman, while wrapping the dress around another’s neck before somersaulting backwards into the corner, somehow taking out another policewoman in the process. 

More officers came streaming in through the door, spraying gunfire as they went. The Hawkeyes had their work cut out trying to not only dodge the bullets but draw them away from Natasha as well. Kate glanced over at Clint while socking a cop in the chin to see him jabbing a putty arrow down the muzzle of one gun and throwing a net arrow at another. 

“What the futz, Hawkeye,” Kate shouted, yanking a rifle out of an officer’s hands, “You brought _trick arrows_ to a fancy party?” 

“Shut up, Hawkeye,” Clint shouted back, almost tripping in the putty from his arrow. 

Meanwhile, Natasha was crouched in the corner where Richmond’s USB was supposed to be, peeking under rugs and around chair legs. Occasionally she shot something from her bracelets at any officer unfortunate enough to come near her. 

Her hands caught on a large crack in the hardwood, hidden behind a bookshelf, and she dug her fingers in. She grinned when they closed around a cold, plastic stick, about two inches long. 

“Got it!” she yelled, “Let’s get out of here!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynt Ward will never be the West Coast Kingpin, and everyone's reaction to seeing Kate Bishop is the emotional equivalent of pointing aggressively and yelling, “YOU!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, folks!

Flynt Ward lounged back in his chair, motioning for one of his bellhop minions to come over. 

“Head back to the ballroom,” he ordered, “Tell me if Richmond is still in there or if he’s blown me off.” The minion nodded and left the room, leaving his… twin? Brother? Random lookalike? Ward wasn’t sure, but he was left guarding the door. 

The Weed Lord sighed, twirling a champagne flute between two fingers. His eyes drifted towards the side room’s balcony window, facing another wall and window at an L shaped intersection. The sky outside was pleasantly sunny, and there was just enough of a breeze to ruffle the mansion's pristine, expansive lawn. 

As he watched the bushes below, Ward let his mind wander toward the future. This could be his defining moment, assuming Richmond stayed true to his word. This could be the deal that he looked back on, years in the future, with a fond smirk from the golden throne of Los Angeles' underbelly. (He could be the West Coast Kingpin. How was that for an idea?) And it would all start with this--the deal that would propel him into the big leagues of supervillainy… 

A sudden shout from outside shook him from his thoughts. Right before his eyes, the window across from his shattered outward in a grand explosion of glass, diamond shards splintering all over the ground. He jumped up in shock, taking a second for his brain to register what had smashed it: a single, purple arrow, shot from inside. 

Suddenly, he had a bad feeling about this party. 

A moment later, a man leapt out the window, legs pin-wheeling before he hit the bushes. In his hand was what appeared to be a makeshift bow made out of the broken off, curved arm of a chair and half an elastic suspender. 

Soon, a red-haired lady in a cat suit followed, landing in a more dignified roll on the grass beyond the bushes, where the man was still crawling out of. 

And then, screaming bloody murder the entire way down, Kate Bishop jumped out the window and landed on top of him. 

Ward gaped. 

The threesome picked themselves up and started running. Ward could hear the redhead’s voice faintly shout, “Zigzag! Zigzag!” and they all started tearing erratically across the lawn like three drunk, colorful ants. 

Ward glanced down at his champagne in uncertainty… 

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any stranger, half a dozen armored policemen burst through the window, and an overweight, balding man in his shirtsleeves leaned out after them, shaking his fist and yelling, “Don’t let ‘em get away!” 

Ward could have sworn two of the cops were covered in what looked like tar. 

And the balding man was missing a suspender.


End file.
